Redemption of the Dead: A DI Sean Corrigan short story

A chilling short story taking us back to DI Sean Corrigan's days as a newly minted detective from Luke Delaney, ex-Met detective and author of Cold Killing. Perfect for fans of Mark Billingham, Peter James and Stuart MacBride. It's 1993. The Parkside Rapist has been terrorising the women of South London, and Detective Chief Superintendent Charlie Bannan is in need of a secret weapon if he's going to catch this particular monster.

A Tapping at My Door

From the best-selling author of Cry Baby, the beginning of a brilliant and gripping police procedural series set in Liverpool, perfect for fans of Peter James and Mark Billingham. A woman at home in Liverpool is disturbed by a persistent tapping at her back door. She's disturbed to discover the culprit is a raven and tries to shoo it away. Which is when the killer strikes. DS Nathan Cody, still bearing the scars of an undercover mission that went horrifyingly wrong, is put on the case.

Dark Crimes: DCI Sophie Allen, Book 1

A young woman's body is discovered on a deserted footpath. It seems like a simple crime for DCI Sophie Allen and her team to solve. But not when the victim's mother is found strangled the next morning. The case grows more complex as DCI Sophie Allen discovers that the victims had secret histories, involving violence and intimidation. There's an obvious suspect, but Detective Allen isn't convinced. Could someone else be lurking in the shadows, someone savagely violent, looking for warped revenge?

The Girl in the Ice: Detective Erika Foster Crime Thriller, Book 1

When a young boy discovers the body of a woman beneath a thick sheet of ice in a South London park, Detective Erika Foster is called in to lead the murder investigation. The victim, a beautiful young socialite, appeared to have the perfect life. Yet when Erika begins to dig deeper, she starts to connect the dots between the murder and the killings of three prostitutes, all found strangled, hands bound, and dumped in water around London.

Silent Scream: Detective Kim Stone Crime Thriller, Book 1

Five figures gather 'round a shallow grave. They had all taken turns to dig. An adult-sized hole would have taken longer. An innocent life had been taken, but the pact had been made. Their secrets would be buried, bound in blood. Years later a headmistress is found brutally strangled, the first in a spate of gruesome murders that shock the Black Country.

The Butterfly Garden

Near an isolated mansion lies a beautiful garden. In this garden grow luscious flowers, shady trees...and a collection of precious "butterflies" - young women who have been kidnapped and intricately tattooed to resemble their namesakes. Overseeing it all is the Gardener, a brutal, twisted man obsessed with capturing and preserving his lovely specimens.

Missing, Presumed: A Novel

At 39, Manon Bradshaw is a devoted and respected member of the Cambridgeshire police force, and though she loves her job, what she longs for is a personal life. Single and distant from her family, she wants a husband and children of her own. One night, after yet another disastrous Internet date, she turns on her police radio to help herself fall asleep - and receives an alert that sends her to a puzzling crime scene.

From the Cradle

When Helen and Sean Phillips go out for the evening, leaving their teenage daughter babysitting little Frankie, they have no idea that they are about to face every parent's greatest fear. Detective Inspector Patrick Lennon is hopeful that the three children who have been abducted in this patch of south-west London will be returned safe and well. But when a body is found in a local park, Lennon realizes that time is running out - and that nothing in this case is as it seems.…

The Sister

Grace hasn't been the same since the death of her best friend, Charlie. She is haunted by Charlie's words the last time she saw her and, in a bid for answers, opens an old memory box of Charlie's. It soon becomes clear there was a lot she didn't know about her best friend. When Grace starts a campaign to find Charlie's father, Anna, a girl claiming to be Charlie's sister, steps forward. For Grace, finding Anna is like finding a new family, and soon Anna has made herself very comfortable in Grace and her boyfriend Dan's home. But something isn't right.

The Girl Who Wrote in Silk

Inara Erickson is exploring her deceased aunt's island estate when she finds an elaborately stitched piece of fabric hidden in the house. As she peels back layer upon layer of the secrets it holds, Inara's life becomes interwoven with that of Mei Lein, a young Chinese girl mysteriously driven from her home a century before. Through the stories Mei Lein tells in silk, Inara uncovers a tragic truth that will shake her family to its core - and force her to make an impossible choice.

Relic: Pendergast, Book 1

Just days before a massive exhibition opens at the popular New York Museum of Natural History, visitors are being savagely murdered in the museum's dark hallways and secret rooms. Autopsies indicate that the killer cannot be human. But the museum's directors plan to go ahead with a big bash to celebrate the new exhibition, in spite of the murders. Museum researcher Margo Green must find out who - or what - is doing the killing.

No Name Lane

The hunt for a serial killer unearths an unsolved cold case from over 60 years ago. Young girls are being abducted and murdered in the Northeast. Out of favour detective constable Ian Bradshaw struggles to find any leads - and fears that the only thing this investigation will unravel is himself. Journalist Tom Carney is suspended by his London tabloid and returns to his home village in County Durham. Helen Norton is the reporter who replaced Tom on the local newspaper. Together they are drawn into a case that will change their lives forever.

Publisher's Summary

Detective Inspector Sean Corrigan is not like other detectives. An unthinkable childhood left him with a fierce determination to protect the innocent. But it also marked him with an ability to identify the darkness in others - a darkness he recognizes still exists deep within himself.

When a young man is found brutally murdered, Corrigan, responsible for South London's Murder Investigation Team, takes the case. But what first appears to be a straightforward domestic murder very quickly leads Corrigan to several other victims and the most dangerous killer he's ever encountered.

The perpetrator changes his modus operandi with each crime and leaves behind not a shred of usable forensic evidence. Still, Corrigan knows beyond a doubt that the same man is behind each of these deaths, and he soon finds himself in a lethal game of cat and mouse with a killer who strikes far too close to home.

The writing is actually quite good in this debut. I'm not a fan of murder mysteries that spend an inordinate amount of time in serial killers heads but I could have forgiven that. What I can't forgive is advancing the plot by having the detective make "intuitive leaps" based on nothing. If I hadn't been listening to this on my iPod, I would have thrown it against the wall.

Too many things are wrong with this book and they would all have to be changed:<br/>- policeman protagonist uses "intuition" to identify the killer. <br/>- police plant evidence in order to aid conviction - this makes the case absurd "We follow the evidence" they say, but in fact they do not<br/>- evidence requirements seem to range from non-existent to ridiculously stringent

Has Cold Killing turned you off from other books in this genre?

No.

What does Steve West bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

I kept listening - I probably would have tossed the book down if I was reading it.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

The general plot and the twist were interesting. They were just not enough to outweigh the absurd bits.

Any additional comments?

If cops identify suspects by imagination then they aren't using evidence. This undercuts the whole procedural story and makes it boring.

Steve West in my opinion did a great job. I loved the dialects. He may have put the book at a 4 star rating for me. The book was o.k.... The inspector Sean Corrigan did seem to leap to conclusions that no one else would have. I get the idea of why he is supposed to be able to do that, but he could have done it with a little bit better detective work instead of what some would call unbelievable guess work. It does have a pretty good story line overall. It can be extreme for the light hearted.

It takes a lot to rock my world anymore. Set your sights at Medium for this one, and maybe it will surprise you.

There is no fact just fat imagination to pin a suspect from the start of the story (I thought I was reading some psychic stuff even though the leading man said he's no psychic explicitly). What if the guessing was wrong? Is this how police normally ruin people's lives when they guess wrong? I have deep problem with the protagonist that he relies on his own sense of violence so arrogantly and his sense is set to be accurate simply because the author did so. I hope the police will have special insight based on something much more concrete than DI Sean Corrigan's psychical vision.

Also I find it rather ridiculous about the idea that people recognize their own kind, because really, nobody knows nobody. AND a policeman is NOT the same kind as a killer regardless they may share the same background. Simply because policemen do not murder innocent people as murderers do!

The murders and murderer is somehow OK set up, the supporting characters are also lovable. I like the police work that has been described in the book (except DI Corrigan's "I know it's him" part). But this is not a acceptable story for me even as a debut.

The narrator is good and it is part of the things that let me finishing the book.